The Center for Biographical Research and the International Auto/BiographyAssociation invite scholars from around the world to attend the sixthIABA conference, which will be held at the East-West Center, next to thecampus of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, in Honolulu.

Translation is central to all forms of representation; the theme for thisconference is Life Writing and Translations, in the widest sense of theterm. We welcome papers dealing with the following kinds of translation,and others as well:

LinguisticÂ­-Accounts of language acquisition, and their relation to sensesof identity, of relations with others, of community, of separateness.Immigrant life writing narratives. Indigenous peoples and life writing.Poly-lingual texts. Polyphonic and heteroglossic texts. And of course,the translation of life writing texts from one language to another.

GenericÂ­-Life writing texts often move from one literary, artistic,disciplinary, technological, or rhetorical form to another. Papers candeal with representing peoples' lives in any medium--film, graphic text,writing, image, performance. They can examine the adaptation of onerepresentational form to anotherÂ­-from book to film, from film to musical,from orature to literature, from page to stage to page, from popularconfession to auto-ethnography, from case study to gossip. Or they canlook at multi-generic worksÂ­-online life writing incorporating visual,aural, and textual dimensions, or performance works combining presenceand representation in several media.

CulturalÂ­-Cultural translation involves the vexed but necessary efforts tocommunicate central ideas, histories, concerns, desires, needs, politics,identities from one cultural position or community to another.Translation is the act that takes place in Mary Louise Pratt's contactzone, or on Greg Dening's beach, or at a Truth and ReconciliationCommittee hearing. Translation is often the negotiating of issues ofgender, race, class, and disability (transnational, transgender,transcultural). Translation, as movement between states or spacesÂ­-transits, transitionsÂ­-also shapes travel narratives. Translation, as amediation between past and present, takes into account historicalspecificity. And translation participates in the political and culturaldynamics between nations, and national groups.

For the conference, we're having four keynote speakers, each of whom willspeak for 30 to 35 minutes. Philippe Lejeune has agreed to come, and willbe giving his keynote in French. To represent the Pacific, thisconference's region, I have asked Noenoe Silva, a Hawaiian politicalscientist and language scholar who recently published a book with DukeUniversity Press on language and resistance to colonialism in Hawai'i.Her current work centers on writing the biographies and identifying theanonymous writing of the Hawaiian editors and writers for the newspapersin the 19th century. Barbara Harlow, who works on resistance literatureand life writing in such trouble spots as the Middle East, South Africa,and Northern Ireland, will talk about the politics of translation andlife writing. And Alicia Partnoy, a survivor of the secret detentioncamps where about 30,000 Argentineans â€œdisappeared," is the author of TheLittle School. Tales of Disappearance and Survival, and of the poetrycollections Little Low Flying/Volando bajito, and Revenge of theApple/Venganza de la manzana. She also edited You Canâ€™t Drown the Fire:Latin American Women Writing in Exile.

Each day we will be holding general keynote panels, attended by everyone,with three or four scholars speaking on a particular topic of stronginterest to people in life writing. Some of the people who have alreadyagreed to participate are Julia Watson, John Eakin, Sidonie Smith, LeighGilmore, G. Thomas Couser, Margaretta Jolly, Zhao Baisheng, Susanna Egan,and Bella Brodzki.

Because our primary concern will be striking up and sustainingconversations between conference participants, papers should be limitedto fifteen minutes in length, to insure time in all sessions forquestions and full discussion. Panels on a single topic and submittedtogether are welcome. (Panels and sessions will have three presenters.)Given the theme of the conference, panels and individual papers may beconducted or delivered in the language of the participant's choiceÂ­-various arrangements will be made well before the conference to allowother conference attendees to participate. All participants should alsoinform the organizers about media requirements for presentationsÂ­-DVD,live internet, visual projection, audio, and so on.

Abstracts for papers should be @300 words long. There should be anabstract for each paper in a panel presentation. The deadline forabstracts HAS BEEN EXTENDED to November 15, 2007. Though e-mail ispreferred, abstracts can be submitted by mail or fax to the followingnumbers and addresses.